


remembering him

by The Key To Imagine (whiskeywit)



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:12:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeywit/pseuds/The%20Key%20To%20Imagine
Summary: Backup of old fic originally posted to the Beatles community JohnheartPaul, currently residing on key_to_imagine, currently in locked status. Note contains the header as is on the LJ post.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Remembering him.  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Word Count: 2285  
> Disclaimer: I do not own the Beatles, and I don’t claim this has ever happened for real.  
> Beta: 749_penny_lane
> 
> (originally posted pre 28 DECEMBER 2008)

He absolutely hated Paul. No doubt about it. First, he absolutely could not understand why Paul didn’t like Yoko. She was everything to him. She understood him: what he liked, the way he thought, his political opinions. And, he really liked her art a lot. Even though, at first, he had thought she was a bit of a nutter, they’d soon become good friends. Then he’d fallen for her, and all Paul could do was badmouth her.  
  
Oh, and then he hadn’t even mentioned how the stubborn git acted when they were recording, in the studio. Everything had to be exactly the way he wanted it, and if something went differently, he would get angry. The bleedin’ perfectionist.  
  
Also, even with John’s own songs, Paul always had to change something. And then, for God’s sake, they had to repeat the recording of Paul’s songs thousands of times. John couldn’t bleedin’ stand it anymore. It was driving him absolutely mad, and eventually, he was afraid it would lead him to do something he’d regret.  
  
When he started yelling at Paul, sometimes Paul would yell back, telling John he shouldn’t be so critical of Paul’s songs since his own weren’t that good after all.  
  
Paul and everyone else assumed that he and Paul were best friends. Everyone, that is except for him, George, Ringo and Yoko. They’d seen the truth: Paul wasn’t his best friend.  
  
When he and Paul had first met, Pete Shotton had still been his best friend. Then, when he and Pete started to completely grow apart, he’d already moved in with Stuart on Gambier Terrace and, even though they’d been so different, they had become best friends. Their shared passion for art had brought the two of them together. And even though John often hung around with Paul, he definitely did not see Paul as his best friend. Obviously, Paul was too stubborn and too blind to actually notice.  
  
Later, when Stu had died, Paul surely hadn’t been the one to comfort him, even though he occasionally said he had been. No, his comforter had been Astrid. She understood that he and Stu had been really good friends. He’d loved the bloke, not as in lovers, of course, but just as a really good friend. As the brother he’d always wanted. Someone who could actually understand him. A bit like Yoko, in fact. He and Astrid had sat in a room and held onto each other and cried together. Paul hadn’t been there for him at all. Damn him.  
  
Soon after Stuart had passed away, the band had gotten famous. John didn’t hang around with Paul. He preferred Ringo and Maureen. They had loads of fun together, Ringo, Maureen, Cynthia and John.  
  
He didn’t spend his time hanging out with Paul. Paul wasn’t fun. How much fun is it to hear a constant recital of how Paul could do every fucking thing better than anyone else, - except bassplaying. That was the one thing he was (a little) shy about.  
  
And later, after the LSD, he and George had become good friends, just because they’d experienced it together. They knew what it was like to know eternity, to know how everything worked, to travel to the ends of the universe and back – while Ringo and Paul were still very down to earth guys. It felt like there was a wall between them, and they started to grow apart because of it. The only possible way to get together again seemed to be for the others to take LSD as well. Ringo was eager to join him and George on their second trip. But Paul had refused to join them.  
  
Of course, Paul had always been the most ‘responsible’ out of the four of them, for God’s sake. It had already been like that in Hamburg.  
  
Paul had to back off. He and Yoko definitely needed more space and Paul would have to give it to them. Ringo still seemed to be cheerful. He was even nice to Paul. And George... well, he still was George, but writing really good songs by now. Paul had gotten married to Linda so John had decided he might as well marry Yoko. He did love her. Perhaps the world might acknowledge their love, if they were married. And well, he could irk Paul with it too.  
  
He couldn’t believe himself. He kept thinking about that bastard, when he should be concentrating on loving Yoko or writing songs. That bastard, he didn’t want to waste any more time thinking, talking or even listening to Paul. It was only a way to get even angrier then he already was.  
  
Yoko wouldn’t go to the studio with him today. She might come later, but now she was busy preparing for the gallery opening of one of her art exhibits. He himself thought it was great, but it was always a bit tricky how the public would react. The avant-garde would probably love it, and the average person would think it was shit. The same person who liked Paul’s stupid, shallow music and normal pop songs. The stupid shit he didn’t bleedin’ care about. Not anymore.  
  
So he was going to announce he wanted to quit the band. Sure, he’d talked about it before and every bleedin’ time they had told him to keep quiet, to not tell the world yet. Ever since 1967. Every single time it was ‘’we still have to finish an album’’ or ‘’we can’t disappoint the fans, you’re too popular’’. But he just couldn’t get it out of his mind and things kept getting worse. He wouldn’t be able to continue like this for very much longer. He just had to quit, there wasn’t any other option. This whole band thing, everything that had to do with the Beatles, was suffocating him.  
  
He didn’t feel inspired to write songs anymore. And still he had the pressure to write, just to beat Paul. But Paul, the king of cheesy-pop-songs, always had something ready to be recorded. Which was often better then John’s, at least according to Paul. So Paul couldn’t hear and consider the stuff John had written with an open mind because he was too excited about the stuff he’d produced himself.  
  
Sure, some times it was as if the group had found its way back to where it belonged. When they were recording, “ Hey Jude” for example, for David Frost, it had felt good to play together with the others that day. It felt like they were friends again, the way they once had been long ago, as if the band belonged together. A few days later, though, things were as bad as ever. They had started fussing about the usual shit, the things they always fussed about and the spark they’d felt had quickly gone out.  
  
After that, there had been the occasional spark again, but it didn’t last long. After a little while they would be back to ‘normal’ again and well...  
  
  
The only one who could actually understand him was Yoko, she was always there for him. And the drugs, but he didn’t really want to think about them. He’d tried to hide the fact he used them. Of course, he had enough money so he didn’t really have to worry about becoming addicted. He only worried that Paul and the others would give him a hard time and he would be kicked out of the band. That was what George Martin had told him, or someone else, maybe it had been Yoko, he couldn’t remember anymore. He was too angry to think straight at that moment. Not like he cared whether he would be kicked out of the band. In fact, nothing would be nicer. Everything had been too fucked up the past few years, and he didn’t believe anyone who told him it would eventually work out among the four of them.  
  
Because he knew it wouldn’t. The damage had been done long ago and it couldn’t be healed anymore. He just wanted it to be quiet, he just wanted everything to calm down a little, and he just fucking wanted to write songs on his own. He didn’t need Paul.  
  
And why should his personal best songs still be credited to Lennon/McCartney. It was always Lennon/McCartney. And McCartney claimed he’d written most of the songs himself. Well, he’d counted it out. And it eventually ended up in him having written a little more then half of them.  
  
He got into his car, trembling with anger and high on drugs.  
  
Paul had to shut his gob. Okay, he had to admit, they had been good friends for a while. It had been around 1961. When he had taken Paul to Paris and Stu had stayed behind in Hamburg, maybe that had been the period when you could say that he and Paul had been best friends. At least, they had spent a lot of time together. It was also when they had started writing songs together. Their chemistry had been strongest then, he assumed.  
  
“Jesus,’’ John hiccuped. “I think I had too much to drink.”. Paul giggled and replied ‘’yeah, me too’’ . They sat on the floor with their backs against the bed, John leaning against Paul and a bottle of scotch between them. Then Paul leaned into John and –  
  
He blinked. Remembering that night had distracted him from driving and he almost drove into the car stopped ahead of him. The traffic light had just turned red. He simply refused to think about that night. It hadn’t been followed by more of those nights and he refused to spend any more time thinking about Paul. Come to think of it, after the tours in England pre-fame, he rarely ever shared a room with Paul again on tour.  
  
Paul had changed since then, had grown arrogant and much too sure of himself. He’d let John down multiple times over the years. Paul had fucking used him, and that wasn’t only how it felt, it was how it exactly was.  
  
By the time he arrived at the studio, he knew exactly what he would say to the band. He knew he wasn’t going to back off, not this time. His decision hadn’t changed: he was still out of the band.  
  
The last time he could remember their actually feeling like a band – and not like four separate musicians – had been at the rooftop concert in January. At first it seemed like a crazy thing to do, playing on the roof of a building, but it had turned out quite well. People had liked it. There had been lots of publicity – certainly a plus when releasing a new album and a film. It had felt good, satisfying, for all of them.  
  
And as he had in the old days, he’d found himself staring once again into Paul’s eyes as they played and sang. He felt that old spark once again, the one he’d felt since the day they’d first met. Throughout the years, that spark had sometimes seemed to go out and their friendship had seemed to slip through their fingers.  
  
During that concert, he’d realized how hard it would be to let go of the band. It had been his life for 10 years. The four of them had created and lived through Beatlemania. Only they knew how it felt to live in the eye of the hurricane; to work day and night in the studio to create a new album that sounded like nothing anyone had ever heard before; to literally run for their lives after a concert; to live through the boredom and the fun of making films together. They had a history together as a band that was also his history personally. He would definitely miss them, individually and as a group. He’d known and loved them all before fame hit. He’d loved them after, too.  
  
And, then, there was that awful night that set Paul apart from the others. Why had he wanted him so much? Why hadn’t they ever done it again? It had changed everything and nothing. Things with Paul could never be the same again. What were he and Paul? Failed friends? Failed lovers? Both?  
  
That night had made his relationship with Paul different than his relationship with the others. They had stayed friends – he and Ringo and George – and, as they had feared that night, he and Paul hadn’t.  
  
And now, he despised Paul. The absence of love had led to actual hate, or so it felt. They didn’t see eye to eye on anything. They couldn’t get along musically or in any other way. They couldn’t stand to be together so it was better for everyone for the band to break up. Especially for John.  
  
Being with Paul, being with the band, was too painful because it wasn’t really them anymore. Whatever they were now, it wasn’t the same as it had been and that made it too painful to continue.  
  
Too painful to continue, too painful to think about. The constant anger and hate had to stop. But it couldn’t stop before he recognized the awful truth: he had loved Paul – truly and deeply loved him.  
  
He arrived at the studio. It was time, time to stop thinking, turning things over and over in his mind. He’d thought about it too much already. It was time to stop thinking and just say it. Today, he would tell them once and for all it was over. And they would know that he meant it. Because at last he understood the truth: that before you can truly hate someone, you must first have well and truly loved them.


End file.
